Are We Equals? (Hint: Are We Women?)

It’s funny how things come up all at once sometimes. A friend linked this yesterday.

This is where I draw the line. This is where I asks moms all over the world who are SICK OF PINK to take a stand and make it stop. I’m making it stop. I’m asking you to say no to saccharine hues of fuchsia and cotton-candy daydreams and obsessions of anything anything anything princess related, my god, my god, say no.

…And say yes to real princesses. Say yes to princesses that will kick your ass. Say yes to princesses doing good. Princesses from history. Princesses from real storybooks- you know, the stories as they were before Disney got their clammy hands all over them. Teach your daughters about Diana and Kate Middleton. Teach your daughters who Pocahontas and Mulan really were. Teach your daughters how The Little Mermaid really ends. Teach them about reality. About strength. [The Craning Gap]

I read. I cheered. I passed it on. You see, I have a daughter. She is brilliant. She is funny. She is creative and amazing and yes–she’s beautiful. And sometimes she wants to Not Care about looking pretty. She wants to look tough. Or boyish. Or carefree. She wants to wear neon green cargo capris and a baggy Adam Lambert t-shirt and not bother with make-up.

She feels like she has to explain to everyone she meets why she doesn’t look pretty (though she is just as beautiful as ever.) Sometimes she revolts against all the fucking pink. Don’t get me wrong–she likes pink. She likes purple. She just gets a little sick of it being shoved down her throat.

I’ll tell you a secret–sometimes we shop in the boys’ clothing section, because they have more choices. And, as I’ve told her many times, if you want comfortable clothes–go for boy stuff. No one making clothes for women is particularly concerned about comfort.

Today my friend linked this.

I want to live in a world where little girls are not pinkified, but where little girls who like pink are not punished for it, either. We can certainly talk about the social pressures surrounding gender roles, and the concerns that people have when they see girls and young women who appear to be forced into performances of femininity by the society around them, but let’s stop acting like they have no agency and free will. Let’s stop acting like women who choose to be feminine are somehow colluders, betraying the movement, bamboozled into thinking that they want to be feminine. Let’s stop denying women their own autonomy by telling them that their expressions of femininity are bad and wrong. [meloukhia.net]

I cheered again. My daughter does like pink, and she does like to wear a skirt fairly often, and she lives in anticipation of the day I allow her a real pair of heels. None of those should ever hold her back from anything she wants to do (except possibly marathon running IN heels.) None of those indicate her intelligence or her commitment to herself and the rest of femaledom. She can handle a wrench, people. She takes great pride in telling people she built her own bike “almost.” She can wear a damned pink shirt if she wants to.

And then–hells, and then. I was reading an article on something else and the headline “Daniel Craig in Drag” caught my eye, and I found this.

I showed it to my daughter. I told her it’s because this is what she’s up against. You know what she said?

“I can take them!”

She can, but she shouldn’t have to do it. I say we need to stand together. Our daughters, our nieces, our brilliant neighbor kids are growing up in a world that still doesn’t see their value. The more we stand together, the stronger we fight our battles, the less they have to fight. The less time they waste fighting a war that should have been over long ago, the sooner they can get on with their mighty lives.

Let’s GO, girls.